Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival
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With the new iPhones, the Apple marketing bullshit has reached new heights. I had some hopes that they had started moving away from just adding features everyone else had for years, but seems I was wrong.
So, the iPhone X -
Say hello to the future.Or say hello to two years ago for any high-end Android users.Our vision has always been to create an iPhone that is entirely screen.Ya know, if that had truly been your vision, the Home button would have been scrapped like 5 years ago to maximize the available amount of space for a screen.An all‑new 5.8‑inch Super Retina screen fills the hand and dazzles the eyes.2436-by-1125-pixel resolution at 458 ppiAnd it still is lower resolution and ppi than the high-end Android devices had for 2-3 years. And what's up with that retard-otastic uneven resolution? 1440p is a standard, ya know. Also, I foresee the rounded corners just ending up a pointless annoyance, just like Samsung's curved screens. Because making a square iPhone would break the laws of nature or something.The first OLED screen that rises to the standards of iPhoneOr we figured maybe it was time to switch to the superior screen type already instead of cheaping out on older tech.Instead of pressing a button, a single swipe takes you home from anywhere.Sorta like most Android devices has done for years. Good job.Your face is now your password. Face ID is a secure new way to unlock, authenticate, and pay.If by "new" you mean taking yet another feature built into a lot of modern smartphones and laptops already.The TrueDepth camera analyzes more than 50 different muscle movements to mirror your expressions in 12 Animoji. Reveal your inner panda, pig, or robot.Because just what the world needed was animated emojis.Introducing A11 Bionic. The most powerful and smartest chip ever in a smartphone, with a neural engine that’s capable of up to 600 billion operations per second.We don't know what it means, but it sounds cool and has big numbers!The neural engine in the A11 Bionic chip is a dual-core design that recognizes people, places, and objects. It tears through machine learning tasks at up to 600 billion operations per second and is the driving force behind innovative new features like Face ID and Animoji.
That's not really selling me on the CPU, Apple. And also makes it sound like it was purpose-built to be better at rendering emojis.A second-generation performance controller and custom battery design that lasts up to two hours longer between charges than iPhone 7.So maybe it'll almost last until you're home from work!
With no charging cable required, iPhone X is truly designed for the future of wireless.Ya know, another feature you could have introduced 3 years ago if you had really wanted. I am however surprised it will follow an already set standard, rather than some Apple proprietary thing.A phone that’s all screen required an entirely rethought OS with new capabilities and gestures.This sentence on the swedish site reads "...requires an entirely new OS..." which has a very different meaning and made me wonder why the iPhone X is running the same old iOS.Experience mind-blowing AR games and apps on the world’s largest platform for augmented reality.I still think Android has a vastly larger market share than you do, Apple. And I also think Google was way earlier than you on supporting the development of AR technologies.
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FWIW my Nexus 5x's battery life seems to be dogshit compared to my friends' iPhone 6ixes. /shrug
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By iDiots, for iDiots.
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@bb36e And my Nexus 5X still lasts me through at least an entire day without the need for charging. So I guess it's a bit of YMMV. Although from what I remember, the iPhone 7 didn't exactly have an extraordinary battery life and would drain quite fast as soon as you put any load on the CPU.
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Actually, ignoring all the rest of the usual Apple Super Marketing Bullshit
, I think the processor seems like a pretty cool thing and I'm curious to hear more about that...
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@akko said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
Actually, ignoring all the rest of the usual Apple Super Marketing Bullshit
, I think the processor seems like a pretty cool thing and I'm curious to hear more about that...Yeah. I'm a bit curious about it as well. Unfortunately, it being Apple, chances are I won't get the chance to play around with it (it being stuck inside an iDevice and all that). Then again, 600 billion (a.k.a. 600 Gops), isn't that impressive; the S8 does almost 400 Gflops (and I'm betting that those 600 Gops aren't actually on full floats).
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@cvi said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
@akko said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
Actually, ignoring all the rest of the usual Apple Super Marketing Bullshit
, I think the processor seems like a pretty cool thing and I'm curious to hear more about that...Yeah. I'm a bit curious about it as well. Unfortunately, it being Apple, chances are I won't get the chance to play around with it (it being stuck inside an iDevice and all that). Then again, 600 billion (a.k.a. 600 Gops), isn't that impressive; the S8 does almost 400 Gflops (and I'm betting that those 600 Gops aren't actually on full floats).
Well yeah, that's the problem. Apple isn't going to give out any really interesting details to the public, the way I know them. For example, as you said, they don't even specify what kind of operation they're talking about... If they actually have a specific part of the processor optimized to run neural networks, that could be pretty neat.
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@akko Based off trying to de-bullshit their statements, it seems the CPU is made to be efficient at doing machine learning (neural network), as it seems to be one of their big selling points to make Siri more intelligent and learn how you work and what you want and need before you know it yourself.
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@atazhaia said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
@akko Based off trying to de-bullshit their statements, it seems the CPU is made to be efficient at doing machine learning (neural network), as it seems to be one of their big selling points to make Siri more intelligent and learn how you work and what you want and need before you know it yourself.
That seems to be about all the information about it that you can pull out of the presentation, yeah. I'd like to learn more about the inner workings of the hardware, but as @cvi said, chances for that are extremely low.
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@akko said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
If they actually have a specific part of the processor optimized to run neural networks, that could be pretty neat.
Google developed ASIC for tensor processing and deep learning
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@bb36e Interesting. However, that is a standalone processor taking 40W while running. Pretty different usage scenario than Apples "new thing
"
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@akko said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
If they actually have a specific part of the processor optimized to run neural networks, that could be pretty neat.
The next gen of nvidia GPUs is supposed to have some support for machine learning / neural networks (and hopefully it's also going to be in their consumer cards). I'm guessing that it adds a few heavily vectorized operations on low-bit values. I'm guessing the apple one does the same thing. I'm a bit curious about how NN-specific these are (i..e, do they allow you to evaluate e.g. relus directly?).
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@cvi said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
@akko said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
If they actually have a specific part of the processor optimized to run neural networks, that could be pretty neat.
The next gen of nvidia GPUs is supposed to have some support for machine learning / neural networks (and hopefully it's also going to be in their consumer cards). I'm guessing that it adds a few heavily vectorized operations on low-bit values. I'm guessing the apple one does the same thing. I'm a bit curious about how NN-specific these are (i..e, do they allow you to evaluate e.g. relus directly?).
I heard about new GPUs with tensor units as well. I hope at least with NVIDIA there'll be some info about the inner workings. I don't plan on using them actually, I'm just curious about how they work XD
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@atazhaia said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
Instead of pressing a button, a single swipe takes you home from anywhere.
Oh goodie.
Before: I use the iPhone, and never accidentally go to the home screen with a touch gesture.
Now: {swiping through a webpage} HOME SCREEN. Motherfucker.
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@akko said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
I heard about new GPUs with tensor units as well. I hope at least with NVIDIA there'll be some info about the inner workings. I don't plan on using them actually, I'm just curious about how they work XD
Decided to Google a bit, found this. Oddly informative (scroll down a bit) for something I'd have expected to be mostly marketing wank. ;-)
tl;dr: 120 Tflops of "mixed precision" matrix-multiply + accumulate (on their highest-end GPU). Essentially, you can do D = A B + C per clock and tensor core, where each of these are 4x4 matrices with 16 bit floats (or 32 bit for C and the result).
Not sure why they refer to this as a "4x4x4" matrix multiply, though...
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@lorne-kates said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
@atazhaia said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
Instead of pressing a button, a single swipe takes you home from anywhere.
Oh goodie.
Before: I use the iPhone, and never accidentally go to the home screen with a touch gesture.
Now: {swiping through a webpage} HOME SCREEN. Motherfucker.God yes. I often accidentally bring up the control center when I'm scrolling. At least that doesn't close the active app...
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@cvi said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
@akko said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
I heard about new GPUs with tensor units as well. I hope at least with NVIDIA there'll be some info about the inner workings. I don't plan on using them actually, I'm just curious about how they work XD
Decided to Google a bit, found this. Oddly informative (scroll down a bit) for something I'd have expected to be mostly marketing wank. ;-)
tl;dr: 120 Tflops of "mixed precision" matrix-multiply + accumulate (on their highest-end GPU). Essentially, you can do D = A B + C per clock and tensor core, where each of these are 4x4 matrices with 16 bit floats (or 32 bit for C and the result).
Not sure why they refer to this as a "4x4x4" matrix multiply, though...
Oh neat, I'll have to read that later when I'm off work ^^.
Maybe they mean 4 4x4 matrices in one computation step? No idea though XD
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@atazhaia said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
Your face is now your password. Face ID is a secure new way to unlock, authenticate, and pay. If by "new" you mean taking yet another feature built into a lot of modern smartphones and laptops already.
It is? Which?
It was done by Xbox Kinect 7 years ago. But I haven't heard of any laptops or smartphones having this, or even having the infrared camera required for it to work.
@atazhaia said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
The TrueDepth camera analyzes more than 50 different muscle movements to mirror your expressions in 12 Animoji. Reveal your inner panda, pig, or robot. Because just what the world needed was animated emojis.
Well that one's obvious, once you install the Kinect camera system, you can do all the stuff Kinect does.
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@blakeyrat said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
@atazhaia said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
Your face is now your password. Face ID is a secure new way to unlock, authenticate, and pay. If by "new" you mean taking yet another feature built into a lot of modern smartphones and laptops already.
It is? Which?
It was done by Xbox Kinect 7 years ago. But I haven't heard of any laptops or smartphones having this, or even having the infrared camera required for it to work.
The Lumia 950 and the Surface Book both have facial/iris recognition cameras, and I'm pretty sure they're not the only devices.
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@blakeyrat said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
But I haven't heard of any laptops or smartphones having this, or even having the infrared camera required for it to work.
Is that what Windows Hello is? Or is that just using the normal cameras?
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@atazhaia said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
Our vision has always been to create an iPhone that is entirely screen.Ya know, if that had truly been your vision, the Home button would have been scrapped like 5 years ago to maximize the available amount of space for a screen.Genius!
@atazhaia said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
And what's up with that retard-otastic uneven resolution? 1440p is a standard, ya know.
Standards? Where we're going, we don't need standards.
@atazhaia said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
Instead of pressing a button, a single swipe takes you home from anywhere.Sorta like most Android devices has done for years. Good job.
Your face is now your password. Face ID is a secure new way to unlock, authenticate, and pay.If by "new" you mean taking yet another feature built into a lot of modern smartphones and laptops already.Blasphemer! We are treading new ground! Ground that has not been trod before! There are no footprints before us!*
* All claims of "new" may be presumed to mean "new for Apple" or "new for iPhone".
@atazhaia said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
Introducing A11 Bionic. The most powerful and smartest chip ever in a smartphone, with a neural engine that’s capable of up to 600 billion operations per second.We don't know what it means, but it sounds cool and has big numbers!Well, if we're being honest, that's like 0.6 terraflops, but that doesn't sound as cool as 600 billion ops per second!
Ok, I can't do this anymore. Apple is horrible.
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@raceprouk You're right, the Surface Book does have it. Hm. I thought it just did facial recognition with a high-res 2D camera.
@jaloopa said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
Is that what Windows Hello is? Or is that just using the normal cameras?
AFAICT Windows Hello is the very concept of logging into Windows using something other than a password. Fingerprint scanners are "Windows Hello" too. It's some of the most confusing branding I've ever seen, though, so who knows.
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@abarker said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
Standards? Where we're going, we don't need standards.
Not to defend Apple too much, but they did that so standard 16:9 ratio videos could be shown in landscape mode without the weird "wedge" (or whatever they're calling it) blocking the picture.
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@blakeyrat Most devices handle that my hiding the "wedge" while the full screen video is playing. Then you bring the "wedge" back with a gesture (or by just touching the screen) as you need to.
Sounds like a solved problem.
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@abarker said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
Most devices handle that my hiding the "wedge" while the full screen video is playing.
That'd be quite a trick, considering the wedge is made up of opaque plastic.
Did you think the iPhone X was just displaying an image of a speaker grille on its screen to trick people? (That photo is of a prototype, but it gives you an idea of what the "wedge" is. I can't find a close-up of a production model with it.)
You guys are making me defend Apple. Stop it. There's plenty to criticize about actual Apple, why are you criticizing this idiot stuff?
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@atazhaia said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
Our vision has always been to create an iPhone that is entirely screen.
A claim backed up by no statement, roadmap or mission statement ever.
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@atazhaia said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
Our vision has always been to create an iPhone that is entirely screen.
Pretty sure they at least need a CPU
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They, and people covering them, are very certain that this is the point where AR begins to grow. Because it doesn't require a headset. Because everyone wants AR inside a pathetic little outdated screen.
Microsoft did AR without a handset or PC, then this year basically made a universal AR platform that covers all kinds of devices.
But no, Apple is the best, they are gonna make AR mainstream with their locked-down system only they can make hardware for!
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@blakeyrat said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
@raceprouk You're right, the Surface Book does have it. Hm. I thought it just did facial recognition with a high-res 2D camera.
@jaloopa said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
Is that what Windows Hello is? Or is that just using the normal cameras?
AFAICT Windows Hello is the very concept of logging into Windows using something other than a password. Fingerprint scanners are "Windows Hello" too. It's some of the most confusing branding I've ever seen, though, so who knows.
It's both an API for biometric logins, and a certification program for specific forms of biometric hardware.
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Relevant:
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In related news, Apple says it makes the "most durable devices", so they should last one year
The iPhone Is Guaranteed to Last Only One Year, Apple Argues in Court
Apple says it makes the "most durable devices," but an iPhone 6 design flaw and the ensuing court proceeding shows you can legally expect it to last for just one year.
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I almost feel bad for Apple. When they made the iPhone, the smartphone market was incredibly stagnated, so they were able to greatly improve on it.
Now we have hundreds of hardware makers fighting tooth and nail to come up with new ideas to grab a tiny slice of market share. They've all invented every new idea before Apple did, but Apple is stuck trying to paint themselves as great innovators driving the industry. So they have to come up with animated emojis.
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@anonymous234 said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
So they have to come up with animated emojis
This already exist in Facebook Messenger (and probably elsewhere)
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@timebandit But it's not just animated emojis. It's emojis you animate with your own face.
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@anonymous234 Wow, that makes it totally different then
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Simpsons did it (skip to 0:13 if the time code doesn't work; there's some horrible intro animation)
https://youtu.be/yIjFiTEpPNU?t=13
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@timebandit They were in Windows Live Messenger iirc.
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@hungrier Everquest II had it years and years ago. I have a video on my channel I'm too lazy to Google where I play around with it.
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@lorne-kates said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
@atazhaia said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
Instead of pressing a button, a single swipe takes you home from anywhere.
Oh goodie.
Before: I use the iPhone, and never accidentally go to the home screen with a touch gesture.
Now: {swiping through a webpage} HOME SCREEN. Motherfucker.Yeah, it'll probably happen whenever you try to select some text.
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@atazhaia said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
why the iPhone X is running the same old iOS.
Can't be! A Bionic Neural CPU would positively be a completely different architecture than almost any existing traditional architectures currently available...
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@tsaukpaetra said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
@atazhaia said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
why the iPhone X is running the same old iOS.
Can't be! A Bionic Neural CPU would positively be a completely different architecture than almost any existing traditional architectures currently available...
It runs on DNA. :D
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@tsaukpaetra said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
Can't be! A Bionic Neural CPU would positively be a completely different architecture than almost any existing traditional architectures currently available...
The Bionic Neural CPU is based of human brains to such a degree that it actually forgets stuff occasionally. (Sometimes it also lies to you, but you know, it's mostly white lies, so it's OK.)
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@cvi said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
so it's OK.
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Yes, us Lumia 950 users have had this for around 2 years.... I think we were all like 'ohh new tech' switched it on only to realize that although the recognition rate is OK, the very principle of 'face to unlock' is a bit flawed.
Think of the typical iPhone user scenarios where (at least the MS system) would fail:
- try to unlock you phone while driving
- try to unlock your phone when secretly while pretending to listen to CEO presentation.
- unlock rates are not so successful in certain environments e.g a mix of : skiing goggles, sun glasses, rain, snow.
- A bit clumsy when you need to take a quick picture of a favorite clamshell.
Of course the typical Lumia 950 user doesn't have these scenarios
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@helix said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
A bit clumsy when you need to take a quick picture of a favorite clamshell.
You can use the camera without unlocking the phone: just hold the shutter button for a couple of seconds.
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@helix said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
Yes, us Lumia 950 users have had this for around 2 years.... I think we were all like 'ohh new tech' switched it on only to realize that although the recognition rate is OK, the very principle of 'face to unlock' is a bit flawed.
Think of the typical iPhone user scenarios where (at least the MS system) would fail:
- try to unlock you phone while driving
- try to unlock your phone when secretly while pretending to listen to CEO presentation.
Yeah, I mean, you'll still be able to unlock with the code, but losing Touch ID in the first scenario seem alike a real pain.
- unlock rates are not so successful in certain environments e.g a mix of : skiing goggles, sun glasses, rain, snow.
That's actually what's most interesting to me and probably something that we still need to wait a bit before actually getting an answer: what will the success rate be?
Because Apple's MO for a while already hasn't been innovating with tech, it was innovating with UX. Like with Touch ID: they took an established technology and made it so user friendly that it became what it became.
With Face ID I'd expect something similar. I actually talked about this with a friend who used to have a Samsung S2, which already had face recognition to unlock, but as he said: it wasn't as streamlined as what apple's proposing (that you need to actually look at the screen and swipe) and that it was easily fooled. If Apple managed to address the latter plus guarded against false negatives, this could actually be a good thing.
As for wireless charging: that's another problem of Apple. They removed the jack last year, but added wireless charging only this year. If they did that in one go, the decision would have been much more understandable. And cool. :D
Btw, you don't have to unlock the phone to take a picture. You just swipe left on the lock screen. ;)
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@helix said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
A bit clumsy when you need to take a quick picture of a favorite clamshell.
Can't you do that without unlocking the phone?
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@deadfast said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
@helix said in Apple Marketing Bullshit Festival:
A bit clumsy when you need to take a quick picture of a favorite clamshell.
Can't you do that without unlocking the phone?
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Something that was pointed out to me (although also something I suspected) is that iPhone X is means to be read as iPhone 10. So... does that mean they did like Microsoft and skipped 9 in their versioning? Or will they still release an iPhone 9 in 1-2 years? And what will happen to the sequel to the X? Will it be 11 or XI or 10.1 or 10.2? And what will the phone after the iPhone 9 be called in that case? The iPhone 10 (again)? iPhone Classic? Apple has made this all very confusing all of a sudden!
